The contract for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lost well more than half its value in trading on the University of Iowa's Iowa Electronic Markets following her defeat in the North Carolina primary Tuesday.

The contract price for Clinton on the IEM's Democratic Nomination Market stood at 9 cents as of 9 a.m. CDT Wednesday, well off the 26 cents she had been trading for at midnight Tuesday and the 22 cents she had been trading for during the day. The price means that IEM investors believe there is only a 9 percent probability that she will be the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's contract was trading at 87 cents this morning, up from the 74 cents he had been trading at during the day Wednesday. The number means that investors believe there is an 87 percent probability that Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

Clinton's fall began around 8 p.m. Tuesday, as news organizations started to report that Obama had won North Carolina by a decisive margin. At 7:30 p.m., her price stood at about 22 cents, but by 8:30 p.m., it had fallen to 13 cents.

In that same hour, the price of Obama's contract jumped from about 73 cents to 83 cents.

Meanwhile, on the IEM's Presidential Election Winner Take All market, investors still give the edge to whoever the Democratic nominee is to beat presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, a contract for the Democratic nominee was trading at 55.1 cents, meaning investors believe there is a 55.1 percent probability the Democratic candidate will win the popular vote count in the November general election. A contract for the Republican nominee-presumably McCain-was trading at 45 cents.

The Iowa Electronic Markets is a real-money political futures prediction market operated by professors in the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business. Begun in 1988, the IEM is a research and teaching tool that has achieved an impressive prediction record, substantially superior to alternative mechanisms such as opinion polls. Such markets have been significantly more accurate than traditional tools in predicting outcomes ranging from political election results to movie box office receipts.